Israeli Doctors Ban ‘Conversion Therapy’ for Gay People

Members who perform conversion therapy could now be expelled from the Israel Medical Association, which represents 90 percent of the country’s doctors

LGBT community members block a highway during a protest against a surrogate bill in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, July 22, 2018. Oded Balilty / AP

A ban on conversion therapy by Israeli doctors will help protect gay people from treatments that claim to make them straight, but more work needs to be done with religious groups that support controversial “cures,” activists said on Wednesday.

Members who perform conversion therapy could now be expelled from the Israel Medical Association (IMA), which represents 90 percent of the country’s doctors, if a complaint is filed to its ethics committee, said IMA spokeswoman Ziva Miral.

“The treatments to change one’s sexual orientation have been found to be ineffective and could cause mental damage, such as anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies,” the IMA said in a position paper on the practice.

Conversion therapy, which can include hypnosis and electric shocks, is based on the belief that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is a mental illness that can be cured.

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